IT
EN
The installation of the Museum has involved the spaces
on the ground floor of the villa-farmhouse, and the spaces of the ex-wine
cellar, following a precise design of itineraries shared with the responsible
Superintendence. Informational texts in Italian and English, printed on large
panels and explanatory lecterns, accompany visitors on their route through the
museum, to facilitate appreciation and understanding. The museum’s exhibits are
divided into three sections, and in chronological order they trace the diverse
epochs in which the territory of Gonfienti was steadily inhabited: the Bronze
Age, the Etruscan Period, and the Roman Era.
From the entrance on Via Roma, visitors are welcomed
into the bookshop-ticket office, where they can read a large panel with historical
information about the Rocca Strozzi.Along an informational gallery are
found educational columns on the Bronze Age, and a large introductory panel
about the excavation.
From the gallery one goes down to the Bronze Age room,
where the picturesque original layout has been maintained, marked by a
series of parallelepiped-shaped display cases, with varying bases and heights,
in glass and cor-ten steel.
The gallery
also gives access to the projection room, where videos on the history of
the Gonfienti area can be watched. Adjacent spaces are reserved for didactic
laboratories, with an equipped area, tables, and a large panel explaining
the history of the ancient Mediterranean civilizations. This space both stimulates and completes the
educational itinerary.
The Room of the Etruscan Period is installed in
the ex-wine cellar, where artifacts from the Etruscan era are preserved, amidst
an evocative setting. In fact, a portion of the roof of the big Etruscan
residential building has been reconstructed. The discovery of a considerable
number of tiles and shingles suggested the idea of using the Etruscan roof as
the covering for a large display case containing the artifacts, grouped by
their various functions. The sensation of strolling inside an elegant ancient
residence gives a distinctive and indeed unique quality to this particular
space. A single, large-scale display case brings together the partitions of the
ancient dwelling, comprised of public commercial spaces, as well as private
domestic ones.
On either side of the two
long aisles there are arranged, like well-laden tables, the remains of a
banquet and of a symposium, and the objects of daily use for the kitchen and
the pantry. In the four turrets placed
at the corners of the reconstructed portico, there are displayed the Attic
cups, in a setting dedicated to the “sacred,” with ladles and several large
‘bucchero’ vessels, a few building materials, and small objects and ornaments
linked to daily activities, such as spinning, weaving, baking, commerce, and
personal ornamentation with fibulas, brooches, and earrings.
A final zone is reserved for a meetings hall, and to the
exhibition of artifacts related to life in the Roman era, accompanied by a
panel with a piece of the “tabula peutingeriana,” the ancient Roman map that
shows the transit routes of the Empire’s various territories.